spring cleaning

ladies and germs, whatevs.org is taking a much needed break today. i'm going to enjoy the sunshine, do my taxes and clean my apartment (though not necessarily in that order). i'll be back with more piping hot content on Monday. hopefully see you at Gardener tonight...

but because I just can't leave you hangin' on the telephone, I'll leave you with one piping hott link. i bet you never thought that ESPN's uber-baseball nerd Peter Gammons would ever make a Morrissey reference, did ya? think again!

cover art subtleties

it's quiz time for the FOWs. spot the differences in the "Maid In Manhattan" dvd artwork and win a prize that's TBD but guaranteed to be hott! first comment with the correct answer wins!

dum dums

so remember when you were a kid and you would accompany one of your parents out on a trip to the bank? in the pre-ATM days, banks used to be hellacious places to visit, especially as a kid. the lines were always hella long and you had to be very, very quiet or risk a public smackdown. those long, velvet-y type ropes were usually fun to play with for a few minutes; you'd unhook and then re-hook them a few times, seeing if you could reposition their poles without anyone noticing. and if your Mom had a pen in her purse, you could always use those deposit slips to doodle or make mini-paper airplanes. but more often than not, the banks were crowded and not exactly kid-friendly. that is until you reached the front of the line. like a shining beacon of best, there was always a bowl filled with Dum Dum suckers waiting for you. but what flavor should you choose? after all, you want a just reward for your patience in such an unradical place to be. do you go for a sure thing flavor like cherry or grape? maybe if you were feeling a little experimental you'd try something off-beat like root beer or watermelon. but if all that waiting had driven you insane in the membrane, chances were that you went for the hit-or-miss "Mystery" pop. this was like the Dave Kingman of lollipops. either you were going to hit a home run with a strawberry or fruit punch or you'd completely strike the eff out and end up with some skank ass flavor like pineapple or pina colada. it was always a risky decision to represent "Mystery", but those who pulled it off successfully knew that there was no better thrill out there.

noise, noise, noise

it's been awhile since any hot new couples have emerged (well at least since JP McKrengels and E-Dubz). but now it looks like Cupid might be getting bizzay with Nicole Kidman and Jim Carrey (as reported by Rush & Molloy), not to mention Brit Brit and multi-millionaire owner of the Sac Kings / The Palms Casino Gavin Maloof (as also reported by Rush & Molloy). since these things come in threes, maybe the chances of an Uncle Grambo / Bynes hook-up aren't completely out of the question!

on the eve of their tour with The Cramps, whatevs.org faves The Gore Gore Girls are profiled in this week's Metro Times. there has been much talk of heading over to Alvin's tomorrow night post-Gardener to check out Miss Melody Licious and the rest of the GGG's ... rumour has it that the ladies hit the stage sometime after midnight. pure hottness!

proving that being WT never really goes out of fashion, this morning's Freep has a big feature on the role of boudoir photography in times of war. mad Glamour Shots buzz. straight up wurst of all-time. almost enough to turn a dude mo.

be like the squirrel, girl

even though the next issue of Rolling Stone is defiled by the presence of Wurst Charlotte on the cover, there appears to be some White Stripes buzz within. check it.

the elephant stampede

where's the love, Kirsten Dunst?

whatevs.org has been very fortunate to have worked with some of the greatest writing talents of our time. The Giors, The Squirrel, Nummer and The H-Bomb and many other distinguished writers have taken the time to contribute columns for this illustrious blog. and while they're all talented in their respective ways, not a single one of them stands 7'7". and that's why Manute Bol is best evs. he emailed me this contribution earlier today. i hope you enjoy his tales of being blackballed in Hollywood as much as I do...

---

Manute Bol just has one question for the What Evs community today. Where's the Love, Kirsten Dunst?

Today started off as a normal Manute Bol day. Manute Bol get out of bed, nine-ish, trying very hard not to wake up the wives. Wash up, splash on a little Hi Karate and pop a couple of Advil as is Manute Bol's custom after taking a cheap charge from Danny "Kansas can lick my Dinka D" Manning in '93.

Manute Bol heads for the door, but what the fuck! Someone's crying. Turns out Manute Bol stepped on 8-year-old son Chris Mullen Bol. Jesus on cracker why Chris Mullen Bol crying? Long story short, Manute Bol didn't see him and accidentally put a size 19 upside his 6'2" 8-year-old ass. After getting the kid to calm down, Manute Bol finally gets out of the house and catches the bus to Janub Kordofan. Manute Bol's friend Monnyak Yagoub has internet cafe there -- read a little e-mail, download a few "pics", check out Miami Heat 401-K (tech bubble kicked Manute Bol's A like Barkley in the lane), see if Barber Shop DVD sold on eBay (Columbia House keeps sending Manute Bol total crap) you know, the usual.

Anyway, Manute Bol shoots a the shit with Monnyak Yagoub (even for a Dinka this mofo is CRAZY) for a little bit while some crazy northern-muslim from An Nil en Abyad downloads like every Liz Smith column since 2001. Where you been man? Bahr el Ghazi? J-Lo's been married like 6 times, you missed everything!

Finally, Manute Bol gets on an open Packard Bell and starts to fire up the old Hotmail (junk mail BLOCK, best). That's when this MSN headline catches Manute Bol's elephantine eye "Dunst Holds Anti War Forum".

To quote MSN, "The actress and her boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal are planning on forming a celebrity forum of young Hollywood stars that will meet to discuss political issues and try and encourage their peers to take world issues more seriously."

Manute Bol quickly checks the hotmail -- but what the F, no email invites from "Mary Jane" or "Donnie Darko". This time it's Manute Bol that got BLOCKED. Holy crap, Manute Bol busts his Dinka ass for 5 years trying to stop Sudanese civil war -- what young celebrity knows more about politics than Manute Bol? Sure Katie Holmes is tasty, but Manute Bol gave $3.5 mil to Dinka freedom fighters man!

Manute Bol hasn't heard back from Dunst or Gylles but they better not pull that "young" celebrity crap. That guy who played Shaggy in "Scooby Doo" is like 35 and Luke Perry is pretty close to 50 and you know his Vidal Sassoon ass was invited.

What Manute Bol have to do around here for respect? The resume is strong: blocked 8 shots in a quarter... TWICE, won on Fox Celebrity Boxing, played a minor league hockey game, despite never having skated or seen ICE. About the only things Manute Bol hasn't done is "Shipmates" and "Trading Spaces" -- Manute Bol's neighbors don't even have rooms, so how the hell is that going to work?

Manute Bol tells you one thing, if Yao Ming is on this forum all hell is going to break loose. "I write check?" So wurst.

never mind the excerpts

(from The Morning News)
‘The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty) [Medley]’

Tequila does not so much swim through one’s blood as set it on fire. It is kindling and even tastes like it. You pour it past your lips and almost immediately gag since you’re unused to such an alien and obviously dangerous taste. Your body wants to reject it, and your gorge rises fast and angry and with frightening urgency as the flames douse your throat but your friend advises, sagely, but perhaps a touch too late (where were you before I downed the shot?) to suck the lime slice.

Later, against the wall, itself throbbing because you stand under the speaker and your ears hear only some tintinnabulation of constant silvery threads and you turn to the girl next to you and grab her arm and open your mouth and speak words you can’t even hear yourself say and nod encouragingly toward the dance floor where it is dark and filled with smoke and shuffling bodies and sweat and she, because she knows better, pulls harshly away and scowls and says something back, something still unheard, but the meaning is clear. You did it because you felt you had to, or were supposed to, and the rebuke hurts in ways you never counted on.

You will awake tomorrow unable to move, remembering it as one of the best nights of your life.

---

(from this month's Wired)
"No ordinary peripheral, Sega's mouselike Trance Vibrator pulses in time with its PS2 shooter Rez, emitting vibrations four times stronger than rumble controllers like Sony's Dualshock. As you advance through the game's levels, the tremors intensify. "You can put it anywhere - your foot, your back, your waist," says Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Rez's creator. "It's up to our customers' imagination."

---

(from Neal Pollack's The Maelstrom)
"By now, my reputation as a degenerate retrograde has been more or less permanently sealed in the minds of the types of people who keep track of such matters. I've ingested enough Scotch to hornswoggle a mess of moose, and my glandular systems have been warped by a Skittles rainbow of party pills. Every day, I find a new prescription bottle in some undusted corner of my mansion. One from 1971 appeared a few nights ago. Naturally, I popped a few reds, washing them down with the Veuve Cliqout that I use as a digestive aid when Roger serves me sweetbreads. Within minutes, I was slithering along the floor like a garter snake, my body simultaneously wracked by a prickly sensation of burning from within and the feeling that I would soon convulse with God's most hellacious orgasm. Needless to say, I took some more pills. I found myself in the emergency room, somewhat gratefully, before Aaron Brown came on."

before and after

before...

after...

harry potter ... totally sorted!

is it just me or does Harry Potter look like he's going to a rave instead of a DVD release party? he's totally sorted for e's and whizz! not to mention the fact that Ron Weasley looks like puberty smacked him upside the head (total goon buzz) and Hermione looks like she's well on her way to becoming the British version of Bynes!

"i got it!" (aka "yo la tengo!")

i would imagine that everyone who visits this website has allegiances (whether spoken or not) to certain bands. the kind of allegiances where you feel almost gravitationally pulled to your local record store anytime they come out with new product. i used to have TONS of these allegiances, but as i creep closer and closer to 30 (it's bizarre admitting that in print, even though it's a full 20 months away), i am finding that a lot of these allegiances are beginning to break. but there are a few bands / artists that I just know that I'm going to stick with through the thick and the thin. cowboy junkies? check. morrissey? check. springsteen? obvs. add you can officially add Yo La Tengo to that list.

for quite a long time, YLT occupied similar space in my mind with a band like Mission of Burma or NRBQ ... although they had garnered lots of alterna-press and had achieved indie-icon status, I never knew anyone who owned any of their records and I never felt inspired enough by what I read to go out and make a purchase. but that all changed in 1994 when I lived in the infamous Bagel Factory Apartments in Ann Arbor with Wartinsmooth, Stockwell and Sully. this is where i first heard YLT, specifically the stripped down acoustic version of "Tom Courtenay" on the Camp Yo La Tengo" EP. i discovered this EP in Stockwell's collection and secretly listened to it for weeks, soaking up its gentle, camp-fire style. then when I decided to give Wart's copy of "Electr-O-Pura" a spin, I was amazed to discover how shockingly different (and BEST!) it was. whereas the EP was filled with sleepy, acoustic ballads, "Electr-O-Pura" was filled with songs that were simultaneously crunchy, loopy, and droned out. i remember hearing a lot of feedback and really liking it. so in that fall of 1994, i started a relationship with that band that has continued to grow through the years. "i can hear the heart beating as one" and "...and then nothing turned itself inside out" followed as full-lengths, not to mention at least a half dozen EPs here and there, all with their own merits. then yesterday saw the release of "Summer Sun", which seems to follow a similar path as "...and then nothing" upon the first listen. but the thing about YLT albums is that you are always underwhelmed on the first four or five listens; their music is the kind that tends to burrow itself in your heart and in your head over the course of weeks and sometimes months. i say best.

and imagine how happy I was this morning to flip over to The Village Voice and see that my all-time fave music critic, Robert Christgau, has an interview / review with YLT in this week's issue. for anyone who hasn't heard the band's music, Christgau's comparison of YLT with Sonic Youth (both are fronted by long-married couples) is a good introduction to their unique and "friendly" approach to making music:

"Kim and Thurston long ago set themselves up in loco parentis. They're scene-shaping guardians of new talent, role models from above—sexy-cool, nice but also fierce—and musically, even their lyrical late albums are edged with coldness and intellection. Though only a few years their junior, Georgia and Ira are shy kids by comparison—friendly, fuzzy, cuddly, affectionate. They sound like they want to be your pals, with Ira always gabbing—on the new album, he offers "to take questions for you"—and Georgia laid back. Their use of postpunk noise, which goes back to mid-'80s beginnings that also just barely postdate Sonic Youth's, verges on decorative ... (their vocal style is) over on the spoken side of singing, they murmur rather than whisper, betraying not the slightest exertion as they follow the gentle contours of the tunes."

wayne coyne madness

( link via The Modern Age )

Artist: The Flaming Lips
Song: "Thank You Jack White (For The Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me)"

Backstage in Detroit and the room is full of smoke and apprehension
We've been playing shows as the warm up and the band for Beck Hansen
In walks Jack, he says, "How'd you do?"
Then he handed me this wonderful statue.

And I said, "Thank you Jack White, for the fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me"
It shines so bright that I couldn't help believing it would save me
When I finally got it home, my whole neighborhood was aglow
And I said, "Thank you Jack White, for the fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me"

Jack and Meg are funny
They got a modern backwards liberal family code
Brother and sister, playing rock and roll and doing it on the road
I bet that van began to stink
Then I wonder what Christ would think

And I said, "Thank you Jack White, for the fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me"
It shines so bright that I couldn't help believing it would save me
When I finally got it home, my whole neighborhood was aglow
And I said, "Thank you Jack White, for the fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me"

round the horn

the white stripes debuted at #1 on the UK record charts.

pure hotness. Baetens interviews Adult. in The DetNews.

in preparation for Friday's release of "House of 1,000 Corpses", The New York Times interviews Rob Zombie.

top notch film writer David Edelstein raves about "Three Kings" in this Sunday's NYT. in the interview, director David O. Russell reveals that the goverment taps his phone calls!

this weekend's NYT also features an interview with the authors of "The Hipster Handbook."

ever wondered what it would've been like to be invited to Paris Hilton's 21st birthday party at Studio 54? well wonder no more.

speaking of the patron saints of Glamorama, some wiseacre hipster has created an utterly hilarious fake blog based upon their adventures...

SARS is the new Mono

drudge revealed some straight up hooker stizz!

SARS linked to sex disease (courtesy of The Courier Mail)

celebrity look-alike part trois

everyone here at whatevs.org would like to wish Damore "Good Luck" in tonight's final vs. Syracuse! at left, you'll a photo of Demizz from Saturday night's game versus Marquette, looking quite sexxxy if I do say so myself (everyone loves a man in unifizz!). on the rizz, a photo from his epic Throwdown (avec Peabs, obvs).

by the numbers

it is with great pleasure that I can report that Amanda Bynes proved herself worthy of all the whatevs.org hype with the $12MM opening of "W.A.G.W" at this weekend's box office, good for a second place finish. however, the real story of the weekend is that this weekend will always be remembered as the time when Colin Farrell officially became a movie star. "Phone Bizz" opened up #1 at the box office with an estimated $15MM in receipts and a very stellar $6,056 per screen average. while everyone already knew that the Lusty Leprechaun would be a superstar of the gossip rags for months and possibly years to come, no one was really quite sure whether or not all of that gossip-y pub would turn out to be a blessing or a curse for the star in America's heartland. well now it appears that the Demi and Britney affairs turned out to be the best thing that could've happened to him, as the movie was purely sold and marketed on his (unproven) star power — i find it hard to believe that anyone bought a "Phone Booth" ticket to see Forrest Whitaker. and for all my Farrell bashing a few months back, I somehow find myself throwing out props in his general direction. never thought I'd say it, but Farrell's got buzz. BIG TIME!

in a related note, it's also now official that Vin Diesel has no buzz. even though "XXX" grossed well over $100 mills last summer and likely ended up being modestly profitable for Sony, everyone knows that it was a major flop. this weekend's opening of "A Man Apart" (estimated at $11 mills) proves that while Diesel can still probably continue to eek out some buzz as an Action Star™, America will utter a collective "yawn" if his movie doesn't feature fast cars or explosions (putting both together is preferable). while Vin still has the best voice evs, he will quickly find himself demoted to Hollywood's B-List, straight up second-guy-off-the-bench-stizz. obvs.

UPDATE: Just read an interesting perspective on Vin Diesel from The Hot Button's Dave Poland. He doesn't close the books on Diesel just yet, but acknowledges that his management team has a fight on their hands. you can find the rest of the column by clicking through ...

"The final resting place of A Man Apart aka Diablo aka Shockingly Bad Crap managed an $11.3 million estimate, which means the film might gross $25 million, which is a big win for the company that took a bath on Knockaround Guys, Simone and Willard in recent months. This should have been the worst balance sheet moment for the studio this year. But with this opening, it looks they’ll get within pissing range of the old black ink on this one. Nonetheless, Vin Diesel’s audience might be getting a little cranky about now. And we have more than a year to go before we see Riddick. Here’s some friendly advice, baldy… do a Friends arc… get a four show slot as Martin Crane’s new caretaker on Frasier, got on The West Wing as a something or another… I can write the lead on half the features on Riddick based on where things are now. “Two years ago, he looked like he had the entire world by the short hairs… now he’s a big, bald question mark.” This is when your management will earn (or lose) their 15 percent."

it's like a heat wave!

for those of us unfortunate enough to be stuck in Tha D, now we all realize that there's nothing worse than Springing Forward straight into a snowstorm. and since your Uncle Grambo doesn't want your Monday morning to be SARS, I proudly present the following hottness to you ...